


but if you're thinking you might wanna stay with me I don't wanna go on my own

by buckybunnyteeth



Series: they did the mash (they did the monster mash) [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Wolfsbane Poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15351822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: “Nate, we're blown. Eliot's down,” she tightens something around his waist with a snap, “Hardison we need a way out that doesn’t involve punching or jumping off the building.”“-down? what do you mean he's down?” Hardison squawks, panic obvious in his voice even over the com and Eliot really needs to help train him out of being so obvious, “Is he shot? Is his healing not working? Oh god was it a silver bullet, is he bleeding? Jesus, it wasn't a silver steak was it, tell me it wasn't a silver steak-”Something slithers under his skin. Oh god, not now. Not here.Where Eliot is a werewolf and is forced to shift in the middle of a job.





	but if you're thinking you might wanna stay with me I don't wanna go on my own

“My life was pouring out my feet and seeping through cracks in the floor; yet still I knelt and did not move, for fear she'd let go my hands. Let me stay, I wanted to beg: Please don't make me go.”

― Sonya Hartnett, Surrender

 

It happens on a con. In the middle of a con, actually. They're after a hedge fund manager, Robert Barlow, in New York. The smells of the city paired with the memories of the last time he was in there were playing with Eliot’s senses, making his reactions either just a little too slow or a little too fast.

This is why he tells himself, he missed the scent of the mercenaries in Barlow’s office. Why he didn't pick up the familiar smell of gun oil, crisp bills, and tiger balm.

He misses the smell so the next day when he goes in on the mark (as Barry Benson, assistant to Sophie's Rowena Smalls renowned political fixer and social image expert) he is surprised when a man he thought he dropped off a building in London ten years ago steps out and blows a handful of yellow powder in his face.

He screams, the powder searing against his skin and up into his nose, but he lashes out and manages to hurt the guy enough to escape to the elevator. Hardison is repeating his name over and over again in his ear, and he must be growling but he is burning up, everything is burning, his eyes his lungs his mouth his nose. His hands are popping and retracting his claws without him telling them too, and he’s curling in on himself on the elevator floor as his whole world spins and twists and dips and he needs-

“Parker!” he barks, chokes.

There is the squeak of hinges and then he is being hoisted up and out of the top of the elevator. Cold hands and a familiar heartbeat. He growls but it’s not at her and she doesn’t flinch away like anyone else would.

“You smell like flowers,” Parker says as she straps something around him, probably a harness, “Hmmm. Bad flowers.”

“Parker,” it’s so hard to talk through the mud in his mouth, the rocks in his throat, and he can't god damned see, “You need to get me out. Now.”

Parker hums and he feels her tie his hair back, probably in a bun. She thinks they look hilarious.

“Nate, we're blown. Eliot's down,” she tightens something around his waist with a snap, “Hardison we need a way out that doesn’t involve punching or jumping off the building.”

“-down? what do you mean he's down?” Hardison squawks, panic obvious in his voice even over the com and Eliot really needs to help train him out of being so obvious, “Is he shot? Is his healing not working? Oh god was it a silver bullet, is he bleeding? Jesus, it wasn't a silver steak was it, tell me it wasn't a silver steak-”

Something slithers under his skin. Oh god, not now. Not here.

Parker gasps and wraps a hand around his throat, making Eliot bear his now razor-sharp teeth. She just squeezes tighter. The threat of the shift disappears, and Eliot has no idea how she's doing this.

“Hardison!” Parker snaps, “We need to get him out now! He's going to shift!”

“Shift? Shit!”

Hardison rattles off a route out of the building and Parker is moving before he can finish talking. She hauls them both up the elevator shaft on her own because Eliot has gone ridged and his claws won’t go in and they can't risk them cutting the cables. She doesn’t bend under the weight though. Any normal changeling would be sweating and struggling. But Eliot’s never been sure that that’s what she is anyway.

She gets them up to the floor with the industrial laundry shoot which they then ride down to the basement where Hardison is waiting for them in Lucille. They jump in the back and Eliot can hear three heartbeats inside.

“Oh, Eliot,” Sophie gasps. He hears Nate keep her from climbing into the back, and Hardison gulp, buts is all sluggish like he's hearing it through water.

Something in him relaxes knowing they're all safe. Except they aren't safe because they are all in a van with him when he's about to shift.

“Nate,” he croaks voice more of a growl now, more a bite, more a snarl than a voice, “Nate- you need to- I'm not safe-”

“We need to get him back to base,” Parker says decisively, pressing him to lie down on the floor of the van and splaying a hand on his chest. She's strong enough to keep him down. If the blood-lust comes she won’t let him up. It’s a small relief so he stays still willingly despite the warning growl that rumbles in his chest.

“He's been drugged,” Nate guesses correctly, “Wolfsbane?”

“Cerberus,” Parker whispers under her breath, “Aconitum lycoctonum.”

“Yellow monkshood, from the smell,” Sophie agrees with Nate, “But it been laced with something- ... something I don't recognize, but I don't have super senses.”

“Smells like flowers and death,” Parker tells her, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, “But not like a mortuary, Like …. dead skin.”

“Oh my god,” Hardison gasps as he jerks Lucille around a sharp corner, “Those fuckers.”

“What is it?” Nate asks, a small shake in his voice betraying his worry like Eliot hasn't heard before.

“They laced the powder with wolfs skin. Skin from a dead everyday wolf, not the kind Eliot is. Probably blessed and runed and freaking enchanted. Fuckers.”

“What does that mean for Eliot?” Sophie asks, and Eliot hears her unscrewing something.

“It means that he’s being forced to shift and there's nothing we can do to reverse it. No counterspell, no potion, no nothin'. We can't stop this, he’s going to shift fully. And not just gnarled up face and claws kind of shift, we're talking full-on big ass wolf shift.”

Crap. Eliot growls and arches, but Parker's hold doesn’t lessen, and his back doesn’t come an inch off of the floor.

“Down boy!” Parker says and the winces, “Sorry. Just slipped out.”

Eliot lets that one slide. Mostly because he is half out of his mind with the shift already.

It’s been years, over a decade since Eliot last shifted against his will. He hasn't lost control over the lupine side of himself since he was a goddamned teenager. He has too much control over himself for his emotions to have any influence over his change. Hell, the full moon couldn't even sway him, all he felt was an itch under his skin and a turn in his mood. Hardison always wrote 'Eliot's Grumpy jerk days' under the full moon cycle on the calendar at the condo, but no matter how much they annoyed him he never ever shifted. Not even partially.  And now some powder and a cut-rate hitman had downed him? If Eliot wasn't already as furious as he can possibly get he would be seething.

“Hardison I really need you to think us a way out of this.”

“Think us a way out of what Nate? Wolves have a pack for this stuff, other wolves that will keep them in line and stop them from munching on cute little girls in the forest! But Eliot doesn’t have a pack, and what’s worse is this is a forced shift!”

Nate sucks in a breath. Eliot hears the swish of Sophie’s hair as she looks from Hardison to Nate and back. She's not as up to date with Wolf lore as the others. It’s hard for her to trick a Wolf.

“What? What does that mean?”

“Bloodlust,” Nate sighs.

“Bloodlust?” Parker asks, pressing her other hand down onto Eliot’s chest as the volume of his growling rises, “What’s that?”

“Bloodlust, blood rage. It’s when a Wolf goes mad with rage. They completely lose their humanity and they just,” Nate sighs again and Eliot can picture him pinching the bridge of his nose, “Against their will they … go on a killing spree. They don’t hunt to eat or to protect the pack. They just kill everything in their path.”

The van goes quiet. The only sounds are the screeches of the tires as they weave dangerously fast through traffic and the menacing rumble of Eliot’s growl. Eliot can guess what they're all thinking, what scenario they're walking through in their minds. They're currently in one of the most densely populated cities in the country. Eliot, as a fully grown fully shifted wolf in the throes of bloodlust, could wipe out hundreds, potentially thousands of lives depending on how long the Wolfsbane lasts and how long it takes for someone to put him down.

Eliot’s stomach rolls and he knows it has nothing to do with the oncoming shift.

It's Sophie who breaks the silence.

“Will water make it worse?” she asks Hardison, voice thready like she's …. like she’s about to cry.

“Water- Nah, water won’t have any effect on stuff like that.”

The weight in the van changes its distribution and Parker moves so she is sitting on him, so she’s pressing him down with all of her impossible strength. Then there is a gentle, delicate hand on his cheek followed by the feeling of water trickling over his face. It’s such a relief that his growl cuts off and he basks in the coolness of it as it picks up and takes away the choking powder from his face. He wants to open his mouth and let the water cleanse him on the inside too, but Parker holds his mouth shut. He struggles against her hold but then the water is gone, and Sophie is wiping his face off with one of the wet wipes she keeps in her bag. The smell of the chemicals burns his nose, but it also burns through the smell of the Wolfsbane.

The hands leave his face and he blinks his eyes open. Sophie gasps, but he doesn’t look up at her. He looks straight up at Parker.

She grins at him. Her teeth look too sharp.

“Your eyes are pretty,” she tells him leaning down over him so her hair curtains around his face, “Hardison, Eliot’s eyes are so pretty!”

Eliot knows how he must look. His eyes will have shifted from their usual blue to bright predator yellow, large and alert and completely not human. They aren't pretty. His claws aren't pretty, his fangs aren't pretty. They're weapons. His eyes strike freezing fear into his prey. They're his strongest most dangerous weapons and they have never been, and never will be pretty.

But Hardison doesn’t say that he says;

“I bet they are, babe, I bet they are.”

Eliot hears no lie in his heartbeat.

The growl comes back, louder this time, the shift is getting more urgent under his skin. Getting rid of the powder made a hell of a difference but it hasn't stopped the fire burning down his spine or the blood boiling in his veins.

“Nate,” he chokes out, his voice deep and completely inhuman now. He rolls his head around until he can see Nate where he and Sophie are jammed into the front passenger seat. They both look scared.

“Yeah, we-we're almost back at the warehouse Eliot, you-”

“In my bag, there's a box,” Eliot interrupts because he needs Nate to listen to this, “A carved wooden box. Inside is an old revolver and about seventy-five silver bullets-”

“Eliot!” Parker and Hardison yell at the same time, the same panicked outrage in their voices.

“-it'd take about five shots to take me down fully shifted normally, but I don't know what this stuff is gonna do to me. If the gun doesn’t work, you'll need to make a bomb. With the bullets as shrapnel, I won’t stand a chance.”

Sophie covers her face, and Parker and Hardison launch into twin outbursts of rage. But Nate holds his eyes. He stares Eliot dead in the face, looks until he sees whatever it is he needs to see, and then he nods.

The van goes quiet, everyone radiating obvious panic and fear that is grating against Eliot's senses like a knife. He flinches when the van screeches to a halt and everyone flies into action. Parker pulls Eliot up and out of the van, wrapping her arms around him so he can't move away from her. He doesn’t know if she is afraid he will hurt the others or run away. Eliot isn't sure what he would do if she let him go either.

They all rush into the warehouse. Nate and Sophie begin packing up all of their stuff while Hardison fluctuates between flicking through a spell book and staring pleadingly at Eliot. Parker sits Eliot down on the cold concrete floor as his whole body begins to shake. Next will be the convulsions. Then his skin will drop away in sheets and his bones will stretch. And then he won’t be anything but the wolf.

The wolf has no feelings like a man has feelings. The wolf is teeth and loyalty only. The wolf longs for the old den the place it grew up, in the back hollers and old forests that know his true name, the old wilds that know his people's blood. The wolf isn’t something that he wants to be all the time. Something free and powerful who don’t know rage … unless its blood rage.

He doesn’t want his team- his friends to see the wolf like that. He’s never shifted in front of them. Normally he wouldn’t hurt them, damned whatever form he was in, but the blood rage isn’t something that gives you a choice. It burns through the wolf, fills it up with anger until all it sees is throats to be ripped and blood to be spilled.

He’d rather die than become that creature.

“Hardison,” Nate snaps, “I need a protecting circle.”

Hardison chokes on nothing for a second.

“A protecting circle,” he scoffs, “Nate, I don’t know what you’re thinking man but no protective circle I know of can keep a fully shifted wolf contained. Like- nothing! No wizard, no warlock, no sorcerer can keep a wolf from doing what it wants to do.”

“That’s not true.”

Nate and Hardison raise their eyebrows at Sophie.

“I…” she shrugs, “I knew this Wizard, about a century ago. He used to … used to trap and hunt wolves.”

 snarls so hard his body jumps up off the floor. Parker pressed down on his so hard his ribs bow, and she starts singing a song. Its low and gently, in one of the Fay languages that Eliot doesn’t know. It seeps in through his ears and makes his muscles relax, but only just. He thinks, distantly in the part of his brain that knows when a storm is coming and when an enemy is near, that it is a sad song.

“Sophie…” Nate sighs.

“I didn’t hunt with him!” She hisses, “And I absconded with his entire fortune, so I got justice in my own sort of way. But he used to trap them by using a naturally occurring cave structure that was woven through with these seems of metal.”

“Well that’s well and good for him but-”

“At the back of the warehouse,” Parker interrupts, somehow still singing as she speaks, “There is an old meat locker. There's a big industrial door made of steel.”

Hardison thinks on it for a moment.

“If we use the locker like a sacred circle …” he mutters to himself before turning sharply and typing something into his computer, “…Yes! Okay, yep, we can do this.”

_No_ , Eliot wants to say but his mouth is full of fangs now.

“-Sophie can you get-yeah the charcoal, also the salt and- do we have any mistletoe?”

“A few strands.”

“Good, tie the ends together and give one to Nate. We need to wear them … just in case.”

Sophie swallows and nods.

Parker hikes Eliot up into her arms without being given a direction. He growls as she drags him across the Wearhouse floor to the door of the meat locker.

Hardison and Sophie rush past into the locker, Hardison wearing his blue silk robe, the one that’s embroidered with silver and gold runes that move in a way the silk shouldn’t let him. Sophie hands him the charcoal, the pure clean water, and the salt. Then she puts the ring of mistletoe around her neck.

The rancid smell of the berries burns in his nose and he grits his teeth.

“I agree,” Parker says, wrinkling her nose up in disgust, “Mistletoe is gross.”

“But wolves hate it,” Nate says as he comes to stand next to Parker and Eliot, a ring of his own hanging from his neck, “Why is that? I’ve never gotten a straight answer as to why.”

Eliot growls, teeth too gnashed together to answer.

“Baldr,” Parker says, frowning as she looks down at him, “Baldr he says is one of the answers. Though, not the only one.”

Nate looks at her with an expression that is just as freaked out as Eliot feels.

Then Eliot sees what Nate has tucked into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. A colt model 1862 with a carved bone handle that shows a wolfs snarling maw. He inhales and smells silver.

_Good_ , he thinks, _that door won’t hold me in full bloodlust. Good._

Inside the meat locker, Hardison stops chanting in the old language of Wizards and steps out of the door. He flips the hood back on his robe and looks around at them, expression tight.

“I’ve done everything I can,” he says, voice as small as Eliot has ever heard it, “We’ll shut the door and lay down salt across the threshold but other than that … Man, I don’t know what else can be done.”

“Okay,” Nate nods and sniffs, “Get him in there.”

Parker hoists him up again and he notices now that his skin is beginning to physically squirm, something twisting and writhing like snakes. His muscles realigning for the shift. Won’t be long now.

Parker hoists him up into her arms so no part of him will drag through Hardison workings and places him inside the center of the charcoal circle.

“Alright,” Hardison sighs, “Babe, come on out and-”

“I’m staying.”

“Parker, you can’t!” Sophie shouts.

Hardison shakes his head, and Nate looks a moment away from yanking her outside but Parker cuts them off.

“He’ll slam himself against the walls to kill himself if it means stopping himself from hurting us,” she snaps, and then looks down to meet Eliot’s eyes, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Eliot stares back and makes no noise.

Nate sighs.

“Parker he’ll kill you.”

“The children of the wolf star are no threat to my kind,” she rolls her eyes like they are all so slow, “Why do you think he didn’t rip my arms off when I grabbed his throat.”

That’s … a good point. Eliot doesn’t know why he didn’t.

Perhaps he thought it was because of his lo- his attachment to her and Hardison. That he was willing to lay down for them. And only them.

Nate and Sophie look convinced, if hesitant, but Hardison continues to look worried.

“Parker-”

“Alec,” she gives him a significant look, “I need to stay with him.”

Their gazes lock for a long heavy moment before Hardison nods.

“Okay,” he looks down at Eliot and sighs, “Keep our boy safe, okay?”

“I always have.”

Hardison nods and then with a flick of his finger the meat locker closes, and they are plunged into pitch darkness. Eliot smells the salt being lain outside the door and then a kind of energy settles around them. If Eliot had to describe it he would call it comforting, kinds and …. Sugary.

Hardison’s magic. It settles around him like an old familiar blanket. Where once he would have shaken off that feeling he now lets it relax him, lets it clear his head.

His eyes adapt instantly to the darkness and he looks at Parker, who looks back. She must have night vision as well, though Eliot is pretty sure that’s not something changelings have.

“You have to get naked.”

Outside the door, Hardison makes a choking noise.

Eliot growls.

“No,” Parker warns, “You have to, or it will hurt when you shift. Now.”

He wants to be embarrassed. Wants to say he won’t- won't because Parker is with Hardison and he would never do anything to- he doesn’t want to…

But he isn’t able to say those things, and its almost second nature now to do as either of them asks. So, Eliot pushes his clothes off, hooking his claws through the fabric to rip them off when it's too hard for his already inhuman motor skills. He tosses his clothes into the corner when he is done and lays down on his back in the middle of the circle.

“Good,” Parker sighs and comes to sit cross-legged at the edge of the circle, “Just relax.”

Eliot rolls his big yellow eyes and Parker sticks her tongue out at him.

Then she starts to sing.

Eliot lays there, naked in the dark, the smell of Hardison’s magic all around him, and lets Parkers nonsense fay singing wash over him.

Relaxation doesn’t find him though. He twitches as the pain starts to zip through his body. His heart rate picks up and his muscles begin to spasm beyond his control. He rolls onto his front and hoists himself onto his hands and knees, his popped claws scratching against the concrete floor.

“Shhh,” Parker says softly, “Shhh, it’s okay.”

Eliot growls, not in anger. In pain. It hurts, it hurts so much. He hangs his head low as his body rolls between pain, exhaustion, and nausea, too fast for him to keep up with. He feels like he’s going to fly apart or slink into a puddle of goo.

His body convulses, and he gags. Beside him, Parker keeps singing, and this time he thinks the song is a story.

A long drawn out growl that builds into a roar rumbles up from deep in his chest, then with a snap, a pop, and a pain beyond imaginable human belief, he shifts.

Werewolves, when they are shifted, don’t look like actual wolves except in a most basic sense. Quadrupedal and covered in a thick coat, these are the things they have in common. But a werewolf is about twice the size of the largest wolf at least. Eliot is about three and a half times as large as a normal wolf. That’s why it's not practical to shift for anything other than running over wold terrain, for surviving where a human cant … or for killing.  

Other than that, the snout is a little longer than a normal wolfs, senses are heightened to a degree that overlaps a typical wolfs, and all werewolves have a binding. Something that appears on their wolf form that marks them. Only other preternaturals can see these bindings. They are placed on wolves at their tenth year, a signifier and a promise that the wolf has reached a level of control that means they are responsible for their actions.

Eliot’s binding is a red ribbon, woven with a few wooden beads and knots, that wraps around his back-left ankle. His mother used to say that it stood out boldly against his black fur.

Now, fully shifted, he takes up almost half of the large meat locker.

The pain from the shift recedes. But an anger, a rage, lingers under his skin.

The Changeling- _Parker, protect, kill for die for, keep safe or die_ \- continues to sing her song, sitting so still in the dark. He thinks she is so slight, so small, he could fit her inside his jaws-

_No! no, Parker, keep safe always. Always._

Eliot settles down on the floor, curling himself up as small as he can make himself, lest his jaws snap and betray him.

But … besides the haze in his head, he doesn’t want to snap or tear and rend and eat. The cool walls feel so nice against his overheating skin. And it smells like his den in here. Like something sweet and something strange. The twirling words continue, and he sighs, relaxing as much as he can manage despite the soaring rage in his blood.

It feels like home in here.

“Good,” the changeling says without stopping her sweet words, words of love and home and family, a story of her and her pack, “That’s good.”

Eliot makes a deep contented rumble.

The changeling giggles.

Then she crawls across the floor and leans against his side. Her hands weave themselves into his fur and she rests her head against his stomach. He feels her heartbeat, strong and calm, and feels some of the rage in his blood lessen.

“Hmm,” the changeling hums, “Go to sleep, it will make you feel better. I’ll stand guard.”

Eliot sighs again and then closes his eyes.

Before he can decide whether to sleep or not, the safeness of this den lulls him into unconsciousness.

 

When he wakes up later he finds his head is clearer and there is no rage in his blood.

He feels Parker resting against his side and opens his mouth to tell her to get off when he finds that he doesn’t have a mouth that can speak.

He opens his eyes and sees that he is still a wolf.

Parker stirs against his side and smiles at him.

“Rise and shine!” she says sunnily, “Yep you’re still a wolf … it’s been about eight hours, you really just zonked out … no, no ones tried to come in, though Hardison and I talked through the door for a while, you probably couldn’t hear over your snoring … yes, I am answering your questions without you saying them out loud, don’t think about it too hard.”

Eliot huffs and Parker giggles.

“You sound exactly like an old Labrador when you do that.”

He growls softly which only makes her laugh harder.

“Feels like your bloodlust is gone,” She says, “Or at least, you think it is. I can’t tell.”

Eliot tries to nod, but its hard with big wolfs shoulders. Parker nods back and stands, keeping her hands pressed to Eliot’s side.

“Wanna get out of here?” she asks, wrinkling up her nose, “I bet you could use a drink, and it smells like wet dog in here.”

Eliot sits up but hesitates with going any further.

They’ve never seen him like this.

What if he scares Hardison?

Parker runs her hands through his fur comfortingly.

“He’ll be fine,” she assures him, “And he’ll be even finer when you let him take care of you.”

Eliot sighs and stands up, bending his legs when his head bumps against the ceiling.

Parker lets go of his side to walk forwards and knock on the door.

“coming out!” She calls through, “Bloodlusts gone but he’s itching for a walk!”

She throws a grin over her shoulder at him. He wonders if Hardison fed her some dog jokes while he was asleep.

The door opens and Parker steps out, holding her hand out for him to follow. He shoves himself through the doorway, angling his shoulders so he doesn’t get stuck, and steps into the midnight cool Wearhouse.

Hardison greets them, his eyes going wide for a moment before a wide grin spreads across his face.

“Damn!” he shouts in excitement, “I thought you’d just shift into some wimpy small wolf but no- no! my man is a _Dire wolf_! Freaking Fenris up in here! _Damn_!”

Eliot rumbles happily. Partly at Hardison accepting him so quickly … and partly at Hardison calling him ‘his man’.

Hardison comes forward and Eliot leans his head down, taking in the comforting scent of the other man while he rubs at Eliot’s ears. He’ll let the puppy talk slide. For now.

Which is when Parker takes advantage of the situation to climb up onto his shoulders.

“Yee-haw!” she shouts, giggling as she does.

“Aw Park, come on. It's demeaning to climb all over him like that he’s a living creature … that you also climb all over when he is in man form. Okay, alright. But don’t be shocked if he bucks you off.”

Eliot would never throw her off, he would be too scared it would hurt her. And she is gentle and warm on his shoulders, so he lets her live out her dream of being a _Völva_ for a moment.

When Nate and Sophie come back some hours later they find Eliot laying down while Parker and Hardison lounge all over him, watching cartoons on one of Hardison’s laptops. Eliot’s head shoots up when he smells that they have food, dislodging Hardison’s elbow, making him yelp.

Nate walks up to them, a bucket of chicken nuggets in each arm, and the gun still on his hip.

“Good to see you, Eliot,” he says smoothly, his shark's eyes cold, “He doing okay?”

“Bloodlust is gone,” Hardison explains as he takes the food from Nate and Sophie, “Parker kept him totally mellow the whole time until the Wolfsbane burned out … and I’m not completely sure how she did it, and I’m too afraid to ask-”

“As you should be,” Parker says with her mouth full.

“-but Eliot’s out and back to his usual personality. With just as much talking.”

Eliot growls, but then Hardison puts the chicken down in front of him and he gets distracted.

“Eliot,” Sophie breathes, her eyes glittering in the way they do when she sees a piece of art she wants to steal, which Eliot really doesn’t like, “You’re beautiful.”

He huffs around his mouthful.

“Now don’t get like that,” Sophie says, laughing, “I’ve seen many wolves in my time and none of them looked like you do.”

_Yeah_ , Eliot thinks _, because you’ve only seen puny Euro trash wolves_.

Parker laughs, at his thoughts or something else he’s not sure.

“Can he shift back?” Nate asks.

Parker frowns and both she and Hardison look at him.

“…we didn’t ask.”

Nate sighs, long-sufferingly.

Eliot closes his eyes for a moment, searching out the warm tingle inside him that would lead to his human side … but he finds nothing.

“I think …” Parker says hesitantly, “I think he needs more time.”

Nate nods.

Then a look overcomes his face, and he grins menacingly.

“Hardison,” he says looking at them all with knowing eyes, “I’m going to need a set of delivery uniforms, a Big Rig truck … and a steak.”

 

They go back to the building where Eliot got dosed and Sophie makes a few phone calls convincing him that a one of a kind, carved from a thousand-year redwood and blessed by the Pope, desk has been delivered to the building just for Robert Barlow, if he would only come down to the docking bay to sign for it.

When he comes down they roll open the back of the truck, Nate throws a steak at his chest which he catches instinctually, and Eliot growls on such a low subsonic level it makes the whole building quake.

Barlow comes around to their business suggestions quickly. And then he hands himself over to the FBI, prison being preferable to a world where he might run into giant wolves again.

And Eliot gets a steak.

Pretty good job, overall.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised this ages ago and here it is! hopefully the first in a series of works!
> 
> Eliot - werewolf  
> Hardison - Wizard  
> Parker - half fay/ changeling ... maybe  
> Sophie- Elf  
> Nate - Siren
> 
> tell me what you think! hopefully, more to come! ps if I missed any spelling mistakes ill try and catch em tomorrow im tired man


End file.
